by Jadyn Chase
Maybe I should back out now. If she could read me so easily, maybe I was the wrong person to show her around. One of the others would do a better job. I couldn’t leave her to her own devices, though. Someone had to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t find out anything damaging.
I made up my mind. I would do it only until I found someone more suitable. Who could that be? My uncle? It would have to be someone older, someone who wouldn’t get too attracted her to her mind-blowing body, someone who wouldn’t get taken in by her bewitching eyes.
Just then, she came out of the Watering Hole. She slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”
I blinked. “Now?”
“Why not? I want to see all the places the eyewitnesses mentioned. Come on. I’ll drive.”
She moved across the street toward a navy-and-white striped Mini Cooper parked in front of the grocery store. I halted in my tracks. “You are NOT driving that thing up the Ridge.”
“Why not?” She looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s insured if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No way.” I turned to the alley next to the bar. “I’ll drive.”
I led the way into the alley and got into my Pop’s Jeep. I started the motor and waited for her to buckle herself into the passenger seat. I shot her a sidelong glance, but when I did, I inevitably got another eyeful of her chest inside her jacket lapels. I had to be careful around her. She reminded me of an explosive ready to blow up in my face.
I put the Jeep into gear and motored out of town. She took a map out of her handbag and spread it on her lap. The wind whipped her hair into her face, and that rush of road energy lit up her face. She turned to me and yelled over the engine noise. “Where are you going? The Ridge is over there.”
“I’m taking you to the lookout,” I hollered back. “You can’t just drive up the Ridge and start shaking hands. I have to tell my Pop about you. He and my uncles and cousins and brothers will have a Clan conference. They’ll decide how much access you can have to the Ridge and the people on it. They’ll decide how much of your questions they’re going to answer for the good of the whole Clan.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Do they really have to go through all that? Why can’t I just talk to people?”
“Because they have to consider the safety of almost three hundred people. Do you think Clan Kelly survived on the Ridge for the last two hundred years by letting anybody barge into our territory and start digging around in our closets? We protect our own. If you don’t follow protocol and do this right, no one will talk to you, and you can forget about getting any information at all.”
She sank back into the seat. “All right. I’ll trust you to handle that.”
“I’ll tell my Pop when I get home, but I’ll warn you right now it will be an uphill battle getting anyone to open up.”
“That’s okay,” she replied. “I’m persistent.”
That’s what I was afraid of. Persistent. She was probably smart, too. In fact, I knew she was. I could see it in her face and hear it in her voice. She was no slouch when it came to reporting. I was going to have to watch my step around her.
While we drove, I ran through all the people I knew on Smokey Ridge. I trusted them all, but my Pop would be the best person to field her nagging questions. He was too busy running the Clan, though. He would want to assign someone else to play nursemaid to some nosey investigator from…..
I kicked myself. “Say. You never told me your name.”
She shot me a brilliant, toothy grin. “Louise. Louise Devereaux.”
I bit back a smile and looked away. My stomach flipped every time I looked into her eyes. Louise Devereaux. “Where did you say you’re from?”
“I didn’t say,” she replied. “I’m from Savanah.”
She said it with a drawling Savannah accent that screamed southern belle. She was too quick-witted and fiery to be a belle, though. Every sidelong glance of her eyes, every twitch of her lips holding back her smile, every word dropping from those mesmerizing lips cut me to the bone.
I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know what to do with myself. My instincts told me to drive her up to the Ridge right now, drop her off in the custody of someone else, and run for the hills. I was no good around her. I wasn’t safe around her. The Kellys weren’t safe with her around me. She could bend me to her will and make me do things I didn’t want to.
No, she couldn’t! Christ, what the hell was I thinking? She was an outsider. She was a city girl from Savannah. She didn’t hold any power over me. I could handle this.
3
Louise
Luka drove the Jeep around the Ridge to a back road. The vehicle bounced through potholes and ruts in the mud, but he navigated his way with ease. Anyone could see he’d driven these roads all his life.
After a few miles, we started to climb. I held onto the door frame to steady myself. My shoulder strained against the seatbelt. The higher we went, the more tense I became.
Did I make a mistake driving out of town with a stranger? He might kill me and dump my body in a ravine. No one would ever find me. Then he would never have to worry about me uncovering his precious secrets. Maybe that was how they kept the other reporters from learning the truth.
That was idiotic. None of the other reporters disappeared on Smokey Ridge. They all came back alive and well, and they all reported nothing at all unusual about the place. Some even commented on how nice and hospitable the Kellys were.
After several minutes of driving, the Jeep emerged from the dense undergrowth onto a wide open plateau. The Appalachian wilderness spread out in all directions. Dense forest carpeted the valleys, and mountains rolled away as far as the eye can see. From here, I couldn’t discern any cities at all or even any towns. We might as well have fallen off the face of the Earth.
He pulled the Jeep to a stop and got out. He pointed into the distance. “That’s Smokey Ridge.”
I studied it. Then I took a picture of it on my phone. It looked nothing like what I expected. I knew what Appalachian mountains look like, but a surreal atmosphere hovered around the Ridge. It set the place off from everything around it.
Why did it look so mysterious and foreboding? I didn’t want to go over there. I didn’t care about my story. The curves of landscape sent me a very distinct message: go away. I never experienced anything like it in my life. How could a piece of land possess such a powerful personality unto itself? It communicated to me in an unmistakable language.
When I thought about it, I suddenly remembered Savannah. That city had a personality unique in the geography of the world. It communicated something to me, something very different from Smokey Ridge.
I belonged in Savannah. I belonged to Savannah. I was born there. I would always belong there. I would never belong on Smokey Ridge. If I never set foot on it, it would be too soon.
It scared me. The mountain itself would find a way to destroy me if I ever intruded there. The people didn’t have to threaten me. They didn’t have to be anything but civil to me. It was the mountain itself that hated me and wanted me to stay away.
Did Luka realize? Was that why he kept me away from it? Was he trying to protect me from its wrath? I stole a peek at him, but he looked some other direction. I hid my discomfort by getting out the map. I spread it on the Jeep’s fender and traced the spots I wanted to go.
Luka sauntered over and glanced over my shoulder. “What’s this?”
I pointed at the map. “It’s the Jacks River Fields Campground. Do you know it?”
“Sure, I know it. Everybody knows it.”
“I want to go there next,” I told him. “That’s my first stop.”
“What do you want to go there for?” he asked. “It’s nowhere near the Ridge.”
“Some campers disappeared there. Reports indicate some dragon sightings there. I want to investigate a possible connection between them.”
“I heard about that,” he replied. “Those campers
died miles away from the campground. They disappeared into the wilderness. It had nothing to do with any dragons.”
I rounded on him. “How do you know where they disappeared? Their bodies were never found.”
He shrugged and looked away, back toward the Ridge. It commanded everyone’s attention, even his. “I don’t know for sure, but I read a report in the paper that the missing campers signed into the Parks register at the campground. That’s the last known indication that they were still alive. Then someone found a shoe forty miles away near Buck Creek. They identified the shoe as belonging to the campers, so that would seem to indicate they left Jacks River and went somewhere else before they died, especially since the travel plans they left with the Parks Service didn’t include Buck Creek at all.”
I cast my eyes down at the map. “You’re right. That’s what my information says, too.”
“So what do you hope to find at the campground?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I only know I have to go there. Let’s go. I don’t want to hang around here anymore.”
I got into the Jeep. I didn’t mean to sound so spiteful, but he took me by surprise. I guess I got more than I bargained for when I took him as a guide. He knew as much about the case as I did, maybe more.
I made sure not to look at him on the way down the mountain. The more I looked at him, the more I felt this story spinning out of my control. When I found him looking into my eyes, I saw myself as incompetent. He knew more about the curious rumors of dragons and strange happenings on this mountain than I ever would, and he would never tell me. He would just let me flounder around making an idiot of myself until I gave up and left.
I held the map on my lap, but I didn’t look at it. He knew the way to the campground. I didn’t have to direct him. I cast my mind over the countryside and the story—or what little of it there was.
Seeing Smokey Ridge up close and personal rattled my confidence. None of these people wanted me to break this story. The land itself wanted to hide the truth from me. Why would they want to do that if there was no story to find?
The Jeep stopped in a cool, shady wood. Luka got out and strolled into a grassy field surrounded by forest. The woods clicked with insect noises, and birds flitted from branch to branch overhead. A small stream tinkled over rocks to one side.
I meandered through the campground. A few tents dotted the field. Two pack horses nibbled the grass near their picket posts. The campers and horsemen smiled at us while they went about their business. I took a few pictures, but I didn’t see any sign of the incident in question.
Luka walked at my side with his hands shoved into his pockets. He surveyed the campground with benign disinterest. When I got to the stream, I squatted down and retrieved my notepad from my handbag.
He observed me I jotting down notes. “What are you looking for?”
“I want to check the layout of the campground against the eyewitness accounts.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Eyewitness accounts? I didn’t know any eyewitnesses saw what happened here. I read the campers disappeared from here.”
“Someone saw dragons attack the campground. They were hiding in the undergrowth over there.” I point toward the pack horses. “They saw the dragons descend from the sky, and after they incinerated everything in sight, they rounded up the surviving campers into a group. Then the witness saw the dragons change into men.”
He listened in careful intent. For a second, I almost believed he took this story as seriously as I did. Then, without warning, he snorted with laughter. “You don’t actually believe that load of hokum, do you?”
I bristled at his attitude. “It doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. I’m here to investigate it and check the facts against his story.”
He sniffed back tears of mirth. “So the witness was a man. Who was he—another local?”
I pursed my lips. His derision annoyed me more than anything. “You know perfectly well I have to keep his identity confidential. “
“What makes you think he didn’t just invent the story out of his imagination? How could dragons attack the campground and then turn into men? It’s bunk.”
“Maybe.” I slammed my notebook shut. “Maybe it is bunk, but he gave a sworn deposition to the authorities in Atlanta about what he saw.”
“Why didn’t he give a sworn deposition to the authorities here?” he returned. “Why did he have to go all the way to Atlanta before he told anybody what he saw?”
I didn’t answer. I slid farther down the slippery slope that led to this story going into the round file where it would never rear its ugly head again. I would be the first to admit this story didn’t exactly smack of the believable truth, but I had a job to do. Luka mocking me and my work didn’t endear me to him at all.
I started to stand up, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me down. “Wait, Louise. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make fun of your story. If you want to look around, I won’t say anything about it.”
“What do you know?” I blurted out. “You know about this case, so what aren’t you telling me?”
His expression turned serious, but his eyes still twinkled within inches of my face. “I know from what you just told me that the witness must be a native of Atlanta. He must have been up here camping or riding, and he waited until he went home before he told anyone what he saw—or what he thought he saw.”
“You really think these tales have no basis in fact, don’t you?” I asked. “You really think all these people made it up.”
“How many people are we talking about?” he returned. “How many sworn accounts do you really have?”
I pulled up my phone. “Seventy.”
His eyes popped. “For this incident? I don’t believe it. Now you’re talking crop circles.”
“Not for this incident,” I corrected. “Total.”
He frowned. “What do you mean—total?”
“Seventy total reports of incidents involving supposed dragons in this area, all surrounding the Ridge.” I held up my phone and read out the statistics. “There are ten reported incidents. Some have as few as a single report associated with them. Others have as many as fifteen. Some are more than twenty years old, but with this many reports, we can’t ignore the mounting evidence that something is going on in this area.”
He rubbed his chin and considered. “All right. I hear you. So you have one report for this incident. You won’t find any other evidence around here. The incident happened years ago. All the vegetation has grown back.”
I got to my feet and scanned the campground. “I realize that.”
He didn’t say anything. Now that I actually vocalized the situation to another person, another nail slotted into my coffin. This story was nonexistent. What was I even doing here? There were no dragons living on Smokey Ridge or anywhere else. There couldn’t be.
I wandered back toward the Jeep. The longer I studied the campground, the more it revealed exactly nothing that could enlighten me.
Luka got behind the wheel and we proceeded to drive away. I stared at the countryside scrolling past the Jeep. For the first time since I graduated from college, I questioned if journalism was really the right career choice for me.
I wanted to be the next big reporter in the country. I wanted to be the next Oprah Winfrey. I would never be that chasing stories like this one. Oprah got where she was by interviewing real people about everyday problems to which millions of others could relate. She sure as blazes didn’t become a household name by breaking a story about dragons living in the mountains of northern Georgia.
The journey to Buck Creek took hours winding through intractable labyrinths of dirt roads, washed out creeks, and rock beds. Luka said nothing through the whole trip. What was he thinking? No doubt he considered this investigation as much of a joke as I did—now. I didn’t consider it a joke when I left Savannah. I thought it was interesting and…. well, I’m ashamed to admit I thought it had potential.
Now I knew better. How could
I get out of this with my dignity intact? I couldn’t exactly tell Luka to drive me back to Norton. I definitely couldn’t show up at the office empty-handed. The other reporters would laugh me out of the building.
4
Luka
I stopped the Jeep, but I didn’t get out. Louise sat still and silent next to me. What could I say to her? How well did I convince her to drop this story before it blew up in both our faces?
I hated to look at her sitting there. She stared out at the woods. All the energy that animated her in Norton vanished and left her broken and lifeless. What the hell was I thinking? How could I do that to her? How could I deliberately destroy the one thing that made her so vibrant and magnetic?
I didn’t miss the irony of it, either. That sizzling undercurrent of meaning and possibility drew me to her in the first place. It attracted me to want to be near her, to watch her and find out what made her tick, and I had to go and squash it under my boot heel.
Sitting next to her in the Jeep hurt worse than I wanted to admit. I ached for her. Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t I be the one to tell her she was right about the dragons? Why couldn’t I be the one to reveal to her that she wasn’t crazy, that her investigation wasn’t hopeless and stupid?
I would have given anything to throw her a lifeline, to encourage her, to support her. For once in my life, I wished I wasn’t a Kelly.
Too bad I really was one, and blood is thicker than water. When it all came down to brass tacks, only the Clan mattered. She would do her little investigation. She wouldn’t find anything, and she would go back to Savannah with her tail between her legs like all the other reporters who came snooping around here.
When that happened, I’d be left with my Clan. When that happened, I had to look my family and my relatives in the eye and say I did my job. I kept our secret. I fooled the outsiders. I did what I had to do to protect my people and my Ridge.